Kirakos Gandzaketsi's History of the Armenians is a primary source for the study of the Armenian highlands in the 13th century. This lengthy work, which has survived in 65 chapters, is divided thematically into several sections. Part one is a summary of Armenian church and political history from the 4th through the 12th centuries. This section, which describes the lives and times of the heads of the Armenian Church (kat'oghikoi), is based on earlier Armenian sources, many of which have survived. The second section describes political and military events in the 12th century both in Eastern (or Caucasian) Armenia and in the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia on the Mediterranean. The next section (chapter 10), resembling the first, contains a biographical list of the kat'oghikoi of Caucasian Aghbania/Aghuania (modern Azerbaijan). In chapter 11 and subsequent chapters, Kirakos described the events of his own day: the period of the Zak'arids, the Mongol invasions and domination, and their impact on the Armenians and other peoples of the Middle East. As the author himself was aware, this was by far the most important part of his History, and he devoted much of the work to it. Translated by Robert Bedrosian, in 116 bookmarked and searchable pdf pages. Attached to the document is a multilingual HTML version, and links to additional resources.

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